YAHOO NEWS: A federal grand jury this week indicted 13 members of the “hacktivist” group Anonymous on charges of orchestrating a series of cyber attacks across the globe. As Reuters reports, the 13 suspects were allegedly involved with Anonymous’ “Operation Payback” scheme, originally launched in 2010 as retaliation for the shutdown of the Pirate Bay file sharing site. The operation also included distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against credit card companies and financial institutions that refused to process payments for WikiLeaks, in the wake of the secret-spilling organization’s publication of 250,000 classified US diplomatic cables (an incident known as “Cablegate”). MORE
YAHOO FINANCE: To date, there has not been a single comprehensive look at the total cost of the 2008 financial crisis. Until now. Better Markets, a pro-financial reform Wall Street watchdog, has released what it is calling the “first-ever” report totaling the loss of American wealth since Lehman filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008. According to the report, entitled “Cost of the Crisis“, the financial and economic crisis cost Americans $12.8 trillion, including:
“Estimated actual gross domestic product (“GDP”) loss from 2008 to 2018, of $7.6 trillion. This is the cumulative difference between potential GDP — what GDP would have been but for the financial and economic crises — and actual and forecast GDP during the period.
Estimated avoided GDP loss from 2008 to 2012 of $5.2 trillion. This figure is the estimated additional amount of GDP loss that was prevented only by extraordinary fiscal and monetary policy actions.”
But $12.8 trillion is a conservative estimate, says Better Markets president & CEO Dennis Kelleher, who joined The Daily Ticker’s Henry Blodget in the accompanying interview.
The report also highlights the current impact to the U.S. economy, including:
–23.1 million Americans, or 15% of the public, are out of work or unable to find full-time jobs using the broadest measure of unemployment, or U-6.
–9.3 million Americans have lost their health insurance.
–11 million homeowners, almost 1 in 4, are saddled with mortgages higher than the value of their homes. MORE